Genealogy newsgroups follow the Usenet "hierarchy" system, with the bulk residing in the soc.genealogy.* and alt.family-name.* groups (the asterisks indicate a topic, such as soc.genealogy.computing or alt.family-name.jones). When I last looked (early January 1998) there were over 150 genealogy newsgroups, most of which where in the alt.family-names.* hierarchy.

The following is a partial list of newsgroups available. Please note that your ISP may not carry all of these newsgroups! If you see a newsgroup that your ISP does not carry, ask if they will provide it.

• alt.culture.cajun
• alt.family-names.* (at last count, 114 surname-specific newsgroups)
• alt.genealogy
• fido.eur.genealogy
• fido.ger.genealogy
• pnet.rec.genealogy.announce
• pnet.rec.genealogy.talk
• soc.genealogy.african (Moderated)
• soc.genealogy.australia+nz
• soc.genealogy.benelux
• soc.genealogy.britain
• soc.genealogy.computing
• soc.genealogy.french
• soc.genealogy.german
• soc.genealogy.hispanic
• soc.genealogy.ireland
• soc.genealogy.italian
• soc.genealogy.jewish (Moderated)
• soc.genealogy.marketplace
• soc.genealogy.medieval
• soc.genealogy.methods (Moderated)
• soc.genealogy.misc
• soc.genealogy.nordic
• soc.genealogy.slavic
• soc.genealogy.surnames.britain (Moderated)
• soc.genealogy.surnames.canada (Moderated)
• soc.genealogy.surnames.german (Moderated)
• soc.genealogy.surnames.global (Moderated)
• soc.genealogy.surnames.ireland (Moderated)
• soc.genealogy.surnames.misc (Moderated)
• soc.genealogy.surnames.usa (Moderated)
• soc.genealogy.west-indies